[ntp:questions] Questions and ruminations regarding NTPD 4 config and XP's bad behavior.

Brad Knowles brad at stop.mail-abuse.org
Fri Jan 14 18:17:37 UTC 2005


At 7:34 AM -0800 2005-01-14, elickd at one.net wrote:

>  server [Internal Stratum 2 Server #1] (Shouldn't we be peering
>  server [Internal Stratum 2 Server #2]  with our stratum 2 servers?)

	It shouldn't matter.  You have to define "peer" on both sides, 
otherwise the peer relationship doesn't happen.  If they do define 
you to be a peer, then you would only figure into their calculations 
if you lost your upstream link, and everyone was dependant on their 
local clocks.

	However, normally, using only two upstream servers is the worst 
possible configuration -- see 
<http://ntp.isc.org/bin/view/Support/SelectingOffsiteNTPServers#Section_4.3.3.>.

>  #peer [ntp1]	# NTP1 <---<This server>
>  peer [ntp2]	# NTP2
>  peer [ntp3]	# NTP3
>  peer [ntp4]	# NTP4

	What I'm not sure about is how "peer" servers are figured into 
the falseticker/truechimer algorithms, as compared to true upstream 
time servers.

>                               Though I don't have direct access, I
>  believe our two stratum 2 servers only point to the same two stratum 1
>  servers each; this is quite sub-optimal.

	Yes, that is very sub-optimal.  See the page mentioned above.

>  I'm not completely clear as to where the reported stratum of my laptop
>  is coming from;

	It should be coming from the stratum of your selected upstream 
time server, plus one.

>                  is nptdate calculating it based on the update time and
>  upstream time server stratum or is Windows simply reporting this on
>  it's own accord?

	As for the rest, I am not familiar with how Windows works in this 
area, nor am I familiar with NTPv3 in this respect.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.



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